Bunnies
by InkFalls
Summary: Ever wondered what would happen if an 11 year old Hermione and Tom Riddle were told to hand out bunnies for testing out spells? You probably haven't, but here's a short and light hearted one-shot about it anyway. 'all because of something so inconsequential.' "all its other bunny friends would laugh at it!" 'Hermione's jaw had dropped in shock' "Gaping like a fish doesn't suit you"


_Notes:__ I don't know what made me write this one-shot, it's slightly absurd. Tom isn't exactly how you would expect his character would be because (for some delusional reason) I believe an 11 year old Tom Riddle would have characteristics more in the bossy and Oh-lets-play-the-perfect-student area instead of the sociopath area; there's still a little bit of sociopath in his character but there just isn't as much as an older Tom Riddle would have. It's not set in any particular time frame and I hope the whole weirdness of it at least makes you smile a tiny bit :)_

_Disclaimer:__ I don't own any of the wonderful world that JK Rowling created, it all belongs to her etc._

**Bunnies**

With an utterly exasperated look that made Tom Riddle look older than his 11 years, he eyed the fellow first year stood in front of him. The bushy-haired girl was blocking his way to the boxes. It annoyed Tom to no end.

"What are you _doing_?" He demanded to know.

The young witch stubbornly folded her arms across her chest, refusing to back down from her guard position in front of the boxes. "Protesting bunny rabbit rights." She replied haughtily

"_What_?" Tom asked disbelievingly; he couldn't fully comprehend that she was refusing to follow Professor McGonagall's instructions all because of something so _inconsequential_.

"I. Am. Protesting. Bunny. Rights." An 11 year old Hermione Granger stated, quite like she believed Tom didn't posses an ounce of intelligence.

A blank expression began to form on Tom's face as he put conscious effort into making sure his annoyance and irritation didn't show in his facial features; it was a trick he'd learnt at the orphanage that unnerved the other children.

"But professor McGonnogal told both of us to hand out a rabbit to each student in the classroom." He could even see a couple of snowy white ears poking over the top of the box, taunting him by proving that he hadn't yet managed to shift the Gryffindor girl out of his way. What was her name anyway? Her last name was Granger -he was sure of that- but he couldn't seem to recall her first name. Where the bloody hell was the Transfiguration professor too? Tom took a peek over his shoulder -only to find that the professor was currently showing a dim witted Gryffindor boy the wand movement of the spell _yet again- _before the girls reply had him turning back to face her.

"How can you believe that letting first years practise transfiguration on bunnies is okay?" Hermione was working herself up into a ranting mood. "What if something horribly painful happens to one of the bunnies by accident? They have no voice to speak up for themselves. They may not _want _to have spells cast on them. It's all terribly unfair." Her rant was beginning to end before an appalled expression bloomed across her face as another idea occurred to her. "One of the bunnies could be horrifically mutated by a spell gone wrong and then all it's other bunny friends would laugh at it!"

Disbelief was seeping back into Toms eyes. This was completely ridiculous_._ It had to stopbefore he caved into her outrageous moral beliefs just to get her to _shut up. _

"For all you know, some of those bunnies might _deserve _to be horrifically mutated." Tom counter-argued boldly. He pointed to one of the rabbits that was sticking a pale pink nose over the edge of the box; it wriggled its nose with some small snuffling noises, as if in response to Tom's attention to it. "How do you know that bunny there hasn't been bullying all it's little bunny pals? The rest of the bunnies might be absurdly grateful towards you if you were to horrifically mutate it." At the moment, Tom wanted to grab his words back out of the air and strangle himself with them. _Ridiculous, _he thought again, just that single word echoing over and over in his mind.

He considered trying out an Impedimenta spell that he'd read about on the girl. Surely she had enough sense to get out of his way if he shot her with a spell. Afterwards, he could grab a box, hand out all his rabbits like a perfect student and then grin maliciously at the Granger girl while she got yelled at by the professor and had points deducted from her house.

Hermione's jaw had dropped in shock as Tom had ranted right back at her -something that had never happened in the history of her 11 year old life- he tapped two fingers under her hanging jaw and absentmindedly said "gaping like a fish doesn't suit you" while thoughtfully considering if an Impedimenta would be too obvious to be used. Maybe he could horrifically mutate her_ and_ a rabbit, just to rub it in a little more. Her mouth snapped shut audibly.

Tom's attention was pulled back to the girl as he felt the weight of her saddened gaze on him.

"Nothing deserves to be horrifically mutated-" she stated softly, quietly. Like she'd been reading his mind. "-forgiveness should always at least try to be granted."

Despite how utterly idiotic Tom would have originally though that concept was; he had to admit -coming from her lips and with her deep brown eyes staring up at him- the whole thing sounded quite wise. Maybe she wasn't as stupid as Tom had first assumed her to be. Silently, he blinked his eyes once at her in response before turning around briskly and striding back to his desk. He couldn't see it, but behind his back, a small grin formed on Hermione's lips before she trailed after him to sit back at her desk too.

The whole thing had gone unnoticed by the rest of the students in the class as they chattered between themselves. Professor McGonagall was still trying to help the Gryffindor boy learn the wand movements with a very frustrated look. Outside the window, nothing in the scenery had changed; the whole world had gone on without noticing what had just occurred between the two first years but -one by one- the rabbits were jumping out of the cardboard boxes bravely and hopping out of the open, arched doorway. They knew that would be their only opportunity to escape the room. Both Hermione and Tom watched them go silently.


End file.
